The original lead-acid storage battery developed by Gaston Plante more than 100 years ago employed as plates two thin lead sheets formed into a coil separated by rubber insulators and immersed in a dilute aqueous solution of sulfuric acid. In the commercial lead storage batteries which developed from Plante's original version, the lead sheets were replaced by lead-alloy grids packed or pasted with mixtures of lead oxides, the metal of the grid being an alloy of lead and another metal, usually antimony or calcium. These modifications were made to solve several practical problems encountered in the commercial production of lead-acid batteries, despite the knowledge that pure lead plates, as employed by Plante, have certain advantages over pasted lead-alloy plates. Specifically, in the pasted type of plate, the paste filling has a tendency to fall out of the gride during use of the battery and to accumulate in the bottom of the case. If the accumulated material bridges the gap between adjacent plates, it creates a short-circuit between the plates and effectively ruins the cell. In order to minimize the possibility of this type of shorting, it has been conventional to suspend the plates from the top of the battery case with a gap between the bottom of the plates and the bottom of the case for accumulation of the plate material. Under these conditions it was not feasible to use pure lead which is very soft and tends to flow or deform under its own weight. Plates formed of pure lead, particularly those suspended from the top of the plate, tend to be subject to cold flow, producing distortions leading to shorting of adjacent plates. In order to harden or stiffen the lead used in the plate, it became conventional to use an alloying element, most commonly antimony or calcium. Both antimony and calcium harden lead, rendering it stiffer and more resistant to cold flow, or other deformation, but both also produce certain undesirable effects, such as an increase in electrical resistance, and rate of oxidation, which unfavorably alter the performance characteristics of the battery and decrease its life.